Digital competence represents the cardinal North of a healthy society, and in absence of public services offered by the state, corroborated with digitalization mechanisms and rising competitiveness, society cannot grow, president of the Authority for Romania’s Digital Transformation (ADR) Dragos Cristian Vlad on Tuesday told the Digital Innovation Summit Bucharest 2024.

„In the last two years, the Authority for Romania’s Digital Transformation, together with institutional actors – the government, Parliament, the academic environment and, last but not least, the business environment – unlocked and restarted an extremely important component of Romania’s digitization process. We had a digital transformation compass in mind, with four cardinal points. There was a lot of talk about digital skills, of which experts are required to cover the widest possible range. They represent the cardinal North of a healthy society,” said Vlad.

„The second extremely important point is the increase of resilience, of the state’s digital sovereignty. Critical infrastructures are not just about connectivity, but also refer to the government cloud infrastructure, interoperability tools whereby we can bring the data as close as possible to the citizen, at the center of their activity. Last but not least, without public services offered by the state, the government, local public authorities, in conjunction with digitization mechanisms and the increase in competitiveness, the private environment, society cannot grow,” the ADR head emphasized, adding that the government cloud project is aimed at bringing new technologies to the fore.

„We are talking about over half a billion euros worth of funding for bringing in the latest technologies, precisely in order to provide data resilience to the Romanian citizens, to send a message that Romania is on the map of Europe from a technological point of view too. Last but not least, we partnered with our colleagues from the National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics – ICI Bucharest in a very important project of technological transfer and adoption of new technologies by the private milieu and SMEs,” Dragos Cristian Vlad explained.

He also noted that ADR is considering the development and implementation of a single digital platform to ensure the centralization of all data.

The National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics – ICI Bucharest is organizing April 16 to 18, at the Palace of Parliament, the Digital Innovation Summit Bucharest (DISB) which will also see the 7th edition of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Forum, as well as the 3rd edition of the International Conference on Cyber Diplomacy.

According to the organizers, the CIP Forum focuses on blockchain integration for fighting cyber attacks, the launch of ICI Bucharest’s NFT Museum, and also features panels dedicated to the role of women in innovation and society.

The event will include panels and workshops, the TechPulse Hackathon, B2B meetings, international inter-ministerial dialogues and demonstrations of state-of-the-art products.

AGERPRES